Eleven gunned down in Pakistan market

Shaky control: a Pakistani soldier patrols Karachi to try to stop further violence

Gunmen have killed 11 people in a market in Karachi, raising the death toll from violence in the Pakistani city to 51 since Saturday.

The government said the attack was political before an election on Sunday to replace a provincial official who was killed in August.

Police have detained 55 suspects and security forces are patrolling the city to prevent fresh violence.

Eight of those shot dead were Pakistanis of Baluch descent, said Sharmila Farooqi, a provincial government spokeswoman. The two parties most linked to violence in Karachi - the Muttahida Quami Movement and the Awami National Party - have their electoral bases in different ethnic groups that make up a large share of the city's population.

The MQM claims to represent the Urdu-speaking descendants of people who came to Karachi from India in 1947. It is secular and likes to speak out against the so-called Talibanisation of the city, a jab at the Awami National Party, which represents the ethnic Pashtuns from the Taliban heartland in the north-west.

Raza Haider, the member of the provincial assembly who was gunned down in August, was a senior member of the MQM.

Both parties were competing for Mr Haider's vacant seat, but the ANP announced on Saturday evening that it would boycott the election, saying the MQM would rig the vote. The MQM won the seat.

MQM politician Haider Abbas Rizvi said the party had handed authorities a list of 150 alleged criminals it suspects in the attacks but that nothing had come of it. He blamed the ANP and also the Pakistan People's Party, which controls the provincial government.

ANP spokesman Amin Khattak said the MQM was to blame, noting that the killings began shortly after his party said it would boycott the election.